How to live in Japan for -5 buck a day!

So a gaijin walks into a bagel shop . "hot kohee " he says .

The bill comes out to be 500 yen, but as he is from Seattle he pays without question .

Ten minutes later the waitress comes out with a plate of hot curry .

The slightly confused gaijin, explains that he wanted "Kohee" not "Kuri".

The waitress apologies profusely and delivers the the originally ordered coffee.

To make things better , when she takes the curry back she gives him his 1000 yen and refuses to accept the 500y change !

Now, I'm no mathologist, but if i buy something for 5 bucks, pay with a ten i should get 5 bucks change. Now if i return said item, i should get 5 bucks, not my original tenner.

I'm considering buying a house or car or something and see if i can supplement my income a bit...

I got your snow right HERE!

Or at least i did.

Sorry. It's been a while since i.ve had the time and creative energy to blog (read: Matthew's been lazy). Gomen.

So i moved to my new digs in Omagari on the first of February. Leaving Chichibu was pretty tough...lots of tears and whatnot. Actually, when i informed my class of housewives we ended up chatting for 15 minutes after the lesson had finished. Miki just started rocking in her chair and softly chanting "baka, baaaka, baKA"
.

When I got here, there was a lot of snow. In some places about 2 meters. (Sorry again, i.m slowly going metric). There's nothing quite like walking 15 minutes to school each way in such a winter wonderland. I have considered doing au naturalé just so i wouldn't be lying when i say (20 years from now) "Kids today, when i was young..." But Japan has weird laws about public nudity. Besides, most of it has melted by now.

Speaking of inappropriate things to mention; that brings me to bathrooms. Yeah, so, i had returned from Akita city the other day. After an hour train journey and several coffees, a trip to the little boys room was in order. Upon entry, i found myself facing a giant pink purse slung over a shoulder. "Ah, crap", I thought, "but there's there's a picture of dude on the door. One of us must be in the wrong toilet. Wait, why she using a urinal...". The man-bag thing is pretty big over here. I guess that makes sense...but pink?

I went with a friend to a hanami party. Basically it's a BBQ under cherry trees in blossom. Good times. Anywhoo, his parents don't know much in the way English and they're telling me about the town via him. So i'm sitting there nodding as mom's chatting. Now, my Japanese is a bit better than it was a couple years ago. I'm by no means proficient, but i was able to make out "toilet" and "2,000,000,000" and "yen". Mom sees the look on my face and acknowledges that, yes, they built a water closet for $20,000,000 US!
No from platinum or gold or chocolate. They made it from wood...20 large for a wooden outhouse. I LOVE Japan!

















It's a little hard to make out, but this the bathroom that cost more money then i'll ever make. Ever. But it was a lot of fun and quite beautiful. (The park, not the loo).

Other than that, things are going pretty good. Golden week is coming up a week from today. I'm planning on going to Joetsu to visit my buddy and his shiny new wife. The script calls from fishing and...that's pretty much. I'm looking forward to not doing anything and having my pal's hot wife make me dinner every night. :)
Good times.

Again, sorry for the long delay. I hope everything is going well with everyone. My family is coming out in May so, if you want anything from Japan. . .












BAKA: stupid, idiot
GOMEN(ISAI): Sorry, Thanks, After you, Appreciated
Actually, you can have a whole conversion using only gomenisai. I've accidentally proposed to three people trying to say "thanks"!